Defining Wound Care Learning Objectives for Medical Students: A Multidisciplinary Comparison of Expert and Practitioner Perspectives

ABSTRACT

Assessing and treating a patient's wound is something that every medical student may be faced with from day one of their postgraduate clinical career, regardless of their chosen field of specialisation. This includes acute or post-surgical wounds as well as chronic wounds. In contrast, learning content concerning wound care is currently underrepresented in medical school curricula, although there are many possible topics and options to incorporate this subject into medical teaching. As a first step in curriculum development, this study provides a comprehensive yet clinically relevant catalogue of possible learning objectives for medical students in wound care. An interprofessional and interdisciplinary group of wound care experts collected a first draft of learning objectives. Then a group of clinicians from 16 different medical specialties was consulted to additionally rate the relevance of each proposed learning objective. By this approach, a consensus catalogue of 32 relevant learning objectives in wound care for medical students was developed. Furthermore, varying perspectives of experts and clinicians on wound care topics and their relevance for medical students were identified. The findings of this study will facilitate future discussions about implementation of wound care content into medical curricula.